Hi Cocooners,
It's been a while since I've posted, but this group was invaluable in helping me plan my wiring, selecting the Elk, etc. Well it's now been over a year since I installed the wire, and I'd like to finally get some music out of it!
My biggest roadblock at the moment is I need a PC to manage my audio distribution. I have tried on several occasions to search this site for guidance on what's needed, and every time I do this I get more confused and temporarily give up. So I'm hoping some of you smart folks out there could point me in the right direction.
I'm somewhat already headed in a direction based on approaches laid out by several on this board (IVB & Jwilson come to mind, there are probably others...), meaning cheapo individual receivers (so far IR control only, but up for discussion), Fujitsu tablet PC for "remote control", M-Audio 410 sound card, and CQC. I have a central "closet" with home runs of speaker wire, Cat5 & RG6 to each zone.
In the short term, I am looking to be able to set up 4-5 individual zones to which I could distribute audio only. My wife and I are not huge music or video fanatics (we own possibly 10 CD's and 3 DVD's), but I would like to be able to store & distribute what we have (at least audio for now).
So back to the major question...what should I be looking for in a PC?
Thanks in advance for any recommendations. Any and all advice is appreciated. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Autoidiot
It's been a while since I've posted, but this group was invaluable in helping me plan my wiring, selecting the Elk, etc. Well it's now been over a year since I installed the wire, and I'd like to finally get some music out of it!
My biggest roadblock at the moment is I need a PC to manage my audio distribution. I have tried on several occasions to search this site for guidance on what's needed, and every time I do this I get more confused and temporarily give up. So I'm hoping some of you smart folks out there could point me in the right direction.
I'm somewhat already headed in a direction based on approaches laid out by several on this board (IVB & Jwilson come to mind, there are probably others...), meaning cheapo individual receivers (so far IR control only, but up for discussion), Fujitsu tablet PC for "remote control", M-Audio 410 sound card, and CQC. I have a central "closet" with home runs of speaker wire, Cat5 & RG6 to each zone.
In the short term, I am looking to be able to set up 4-5 individual zones to which I could distribute audio only. My wife and I are not huge music or video fanatics (we own possibly 10 CD's and 3 DVD's), but I would like to be able to store & distribute what we have (at least audio for now).
So back to the major question...what should I be looking for in a PC?
- I would like to keep it under $400
- I currently run XP Pro on my other home computers, which have Pentium processors...not sure if this matters??
- While my immediate desire is for audio only, it would nice to be able to eventually use this same PC to distribute video as well (i.e. would hate to have to buy a different PC later to accomplish this, but OK with purchasing extra storage, etc.)
- This would function as my CQC "server" as well, although right now my only plans for CQC are to interface to the audio distribution system
Thanks in advance for any recommendations. Any and all advice is appreciated. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Autoidiot